5 Tools That Will Enhance Your Business Writing Skills
Today’s business world is heavily reliant on written communication, from business plans, to reports, proposals and news stories for publications on the internet and in print. As such, business writers will continue being in demand and writing for business purposes is going to be a integral part of your everyday life once you’re in the business world.
If you want to curve a career in business writing or boost your general business writing skills, start honing your skills today.
Hone your business writing skills
Business writing, the type of writing used in organizations to communicate with internal and external audiences, is a bit more complicated than other types of writing like blog writing.
Business writing is formal writing that requires a higher degree of precision and being concise when communicating your ideas and opinions. You will need practice, patience and persistence to hone your skills.
Your professional business writing skills will be defined not only by how you communicate with your clientele, but also how you communicate with partners. And your ability to get your message across effectively to the audience will determine the level of success you achieve in your efforts.
Tools for boosting your business writing
Like often is the case with most activities today, there are many tools online that come in handy for boosting business writing and general language mastery. Here are some top tools that will boost your business writing skills and help you succeed in your business and career.
1. Gorgias
In any business, you will find yourself sending emails to different people. More often, you’ll see that the content of the email messages is similar. In such case, you need not waste your time typing the same information over and over again. Instead, you can get Gorgias, a Google Chrome extension.
Gorgias is a free email add-in that can help you to create flawless templates. You can generate email templates for Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and Outlook. With Gorgias, it’s possible to incorporate Salesforce and Stripe – other online platforms for your business.
An advantage of using Gorgias is getting customer profiles without having to switch to another app to retrieve the information you require. You also get a live chat with your clientele and instant notifications when they come online. This boosts efficiency and helps you save valuable time.
2. Thesaurus
Getting your message across to your readers requires having a grip on the language. How fluent are you with language? Your choice of words and flow of sentences is crucial. Nothing disappoints readers like an apparent lack of language mastery. It’s very irritating!
Thesaurus will be a much-needed tool to avoid such mishaps. It’s an invaluable vocabulary tool that will help you master the language. Our choice of words when communicating is paramount. Use of a single wrong word can distort the meaning of your message. Therefore, the thesaurus will help you with meanings of words, their synonyms and history.
The advantages of using the thesaurus are that you get to avoid being repetitive with words, as you can opt to use their synonyms. The thesaurus also gives daily vocabulary tips to help you attain language mastery. It also helps you simplify words that are a bit more complex since most readers frown upon complex word choices. It’s a very simple tool to utilize, and can help you become a master wordsmith.
3. ProWritingAid
As a business writer, your ability to engage your audience in your article all comes down to your ability to make clear and concise statements. Your articles must have some flow and be as interesting as possible to capture your readers’ attention. ProwritingAid is a tool that can help you with that.
ProwritingAid will assist with checking for grammatical errors and enriching your writing style by offering insightful suggestions. Other than being a grammar, spelling and punctuation checker, it also helps with checking for plagiarism, detecting clichés and overused words, and assessing readability – ‘an all in one’ writing tool.
Well, ProwritingAid won’t be a replacement for the real editor but it definitely makes proofreading and editing a whole lot easier, and saves on time.
4. Wridea
Getting your article to stand out requires flow. For readers, it feels awful having to spend time and effort trying to read an article that doesn’t flow well. An article or report lacks flow when the ideas presented are all over the place—even if the article is grammatically appropriate. Such articles, with a lack of organization regarding the flow of ideas, could turn out differently if the writer utilized Wridea.
Wridea is a tool that logs ideas and provides a service for organizing, discussing and refining them. When writing any business content, the first step is always jotting down ideas and organizing them. With Wridea, you can log ideas you have anywhere, anytime as soon as you get them, and share them with your partners.
Business writers can also take advantage of brainstorming tools offered by Wridea. Moreover, this tool is beneficial as it incorporates a collaborative aspect—deliberations on ideas with business partners or team members are instant and updated. It’s useful for organizing your ideas, brainstorming on them and sharing them with partners, friends, and other users.
5. Read-Able
Ultimately, you will want to know if you are engaging your audience with readable content. Read-Able is a free tool that helps you evaluate your writing for readability and gives you a readability score. It tells you at what grade level most people would be able to understand your writing.
For a general audience, you want to aim for a low grade level, like 6th or 7th grade. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that your writing will be “dumbed down.” It just means that the structure will be easier to comprehend for most people.
See Also: Best Web Resources for Writers 101
Last updated August 2018.